![]() ![]() ![]() Lastly, the fear of becoming predictable and stagnant even reaches into their hiring strategy. Mark Veldman remarks: “ You can walk out or you can stay the whole night and you can work here. So, we develop our own materials, we develop new structures.” Īnother aspect of this freedom is the way employees are allowed to manage their time, so they can be productive without being constrained by fixed working hours. Kunlé Adeyemi states: “ Of course it’s easier to use materials from the shelf, from the catalogue, but we can’t be on the cutting edge if we do that. This practice of avoiding ready-made answers runs deep at OMA, it can even be found in the way they source their materials. In our way of working, the important person is the one who is shown various options and then makes a critical decision. What the OMA process focuses on is not the creator but the critic. What Koolhaas provides are the questions, not the answers. One might say that at OMA answers based on no other ground than authority are avoided at all costs. On the contrary, his practice defines itself by an enormous freedom, in materials, in methods and in working hours. Koolhaas doesn’t come up with the masterplan that is then refined by his architects. The studio practiceĪnother way in which Koolhaas differs from his competitors is in how his studio is run. ![]() It’s no wonder therefore that AMO’s and Koolhaas’ research projects can be found in the emerging economies of the world. New ideas are most easily created in an environment of young ideas. Before working with Prada his research on shopping was already available in book form. ![]() Before proposing an infrastructure plan in Dubai, the manual was already published. In his role as professor at Harvard he explored the Pearl Delta before being asked to build for CCTV. Long before Koolhaas the builder arrives, Koolhaas the writer has already visited. By having people full time committed to research OMA manages to be present on the scene before the scene appears. In 1998 OMA made their approach to understanding the world available to others by creating AMO, a consultancy firm that focuses on research, publications and exhibitions. As Koolhaas stated: “ We define an agenda, and then we look at the current moment and see where and in what way we could make certain breakthroughs and that is completely independent of making a constant sequence of architectural projects.” Some places like the historical centres of European cities have hardly changed through the centuries, whilst others like Beijing, Dubai or Laos seem to redevelop themselves within years. Koolhaas and his team have been working on a structure that is capable of searching the world for opportunities where change is happening faster than anywhere else, places where breakthroughs can be made. The easiest way to uncover new ideas is to be in areas where life is being transformed fast. Let’s take a look at the various parts of this system. What Koolhaas has built is a very large version of himself, a system that, through a method of researching and building, is capable of reliably creating beautiful and intelligent ideas on how the world could be. Koolhaas’s greatest achievement is therefore not a building or book, but a system that is capable of harvesting, questioning and producing ideas. We look at the current moment and see where and in what way we could make certain breakthroughs - Rem Koolhaas ![]()
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